Guild Wars 2

Yes I agree OP, rangers are all about vigor and dodgingm its one of the things that makes them feel responsive, and like you I find it hard when playing other classes because of the lack of on demand dodges.

Other things good about ranger- seems pretty good at 1vs1, but that could be because I’ve played ranger a lot. I’m pretty good at guardian 1vs1 as well so it might not be the class. I like the kiting and control playstyle I guess.

Brutalistik.6473:

I usually wreck thieves underwater on my warrior better than on my thief. The first evade attack you might not can catch them often but the final attack which makes them evasion for about 3-5 seconds is avoidable since you can go somewhere else and watch them dance hitting nothing but water.

I also have no special problem with thieves that do not use the spear evade skill and have good iniative regen. However, I have seen time and time again a single thief holding off a group underwater, with just “evade, evade, evade, evade, evade”. They just sit on the point and spam the evade skill, its silly really.

Also yes I always attack from range- just means I lose the point quicker thief just evades everything I throw at them.

The only way i can see taking one down is to time a stun followed by a one-shot type attack just as the skill ends. However, since there is no CD and given good initiative regen, it seems almost impossible to pull this off (even if you had said stun and one-shot skill).

nurt.5401:

Boloth.6879:

While it’s true hundred blades can be avoided that’s not what the OP is upset about.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play

I’ve always thought the main reason the game was more enjoyable during the beta weekends was the fact that the developers had counter-play in the forefront of their minds when they were designing warriors and elementalists, and those were the most powerful/popular professions at the time.

Thieves and mesmers, which were finalized later in the process when ideas were getting stretched thin, time was running out, etc. do not provide as many opportunities for counter play. They have less visual tells in their animations, burst combos that are more difficult to avoid or interrupt, frequently used skills that do high burst damage while simultaneously being a gap closer or providing evasion/immunity, more frustrating mechanics like stealth and clone spam etc. All of which reduce the number of viable/interesting counters the opponent can employ.

Lack of thought provoking reactive play is a big problem in GW2, but I actually think Warrior for the most part is one of the better designed classes in that regard.

Nice post! I didn’t play in the betas, but this is pretty much my impression from playing a fair bit of spvp.

Yes this is a pain- a single thief can take on a whole group underwater, seems pretty unbalanced to me.

Underwater fights/skills in general seem less balanced than land based ones, but that thief spear skill that lets them nearly perma evade if they have an initative regen build probably takes the cake as the most unbalanced.

Now it could be that I just need to L2P, so if anyone knows how to counter it please let us know!

The ranger sword. Its like the devs wanted to create the worst possible weapon, everything is backwards or just mediocre.

Sword auto attack roots you in place. It does look great, the cripple is good, but its like if a warrior couldn’t cancel hundred blades once the animation starts-suicide- except it does much less damage.

The leap back. Oh no this is just terribad. White knights love to praise its evasive leap back and ability to zip around the map if you master a convoluted keyboard/mouse movement pattern which other gap closers acheive with a simple button press. And the evasive leap back? So so slow! Its not an evade- first you stab forward (oh so slowly) and then jump back. You could be dead by the time you finally jump back-it doesn’t even blind on the stab or something useful like that. (pls compare with thief sword gap closer which is way way better and removes 2 conditions on return). PS to the poster who says Rangers already have lots of gap closers, I guess you are refering to the ONE gap closer on GS?

Serpants strike, this actually works like an evade and the animation looks good.

Sword summary:

Auto attack +quickness gives you a weak HB at the expense of being unable to dodge any big attack/stun etc

Leap back executes too slowly, can’t be used as reliable gap closer or evasive move

Serpant strike, is essentially an extra dodge.

Compare that with the sword abilities of other class and tell me if its good or not.

LR works fine on stuns but doesn’t break immobilize, I would also love if it broke immobilize too, but then i guess players from all other classes would also like their stun breakers to remove immobilize.

The problem for the ranger is we don’t have the get out of jail free teleports like thief/mes/ele have (u can teleport away while immobilized) or a trait to break immobilize (warrior/ele)/ immunity to conditions (engineer) .

Rangers do, however, have a stun/condition breaker called signet of renewal. Use this if you are having trouble with immobilize.

Gelltor.3015:

I wouldn’t go for guardian if your problem with ranger is not being able to hit people on walls…..

Surprisingly easier to hit people on walls, and people on the ground from walls, with a guardian, go figure.

Vox Hollow.2736:

I’m also kind of surprised people don’t seem to be talking about opportunity cost all that often. But I suppose, opportunity cost is kind of a tricky thing to understand. So, maybe the relationship between opportunity cost and Ranger does need to be fully pointed out.

If you remember energy from the pre-release hype days; you’ll remember there was going to be at third bar between health and endurance called energy, and every skill was going to require a certain amount of energy to execute. But they eventually iterated to balance around opportunity cost instead. That is to say, the game is balanced around the Time it takes for you to do something, and the idea that while you’re doing one thing you can’t be doing another.

As a Ranger you get to mitigate your opportunity costs during combat. It’s kind of like the cousin concept to Thief Initiative, insomuch that they get to casually sidestep the major balancing mechanism of cooldowns for as long as initiative allows, and we get to casually sidestep the major balancing mechanism of opportunity cost for as long as our pet health allows.

If you don’t play to these strengths, understandably, things aren’t going to go so well. A Ranger is pretty awful if you’re not using your multitasking skills to abuse simultaneous action and be in the two places at once, just like how a Thief would be pretty gosh darned awful too if you assigned cooldowns in your head and arbitrarily made yourself obey them. I’m saying, in order to get the most out of the mechanic, you should be trying to do two things at once as often as you can.

Not that this isn’t kind of difficult sometimes, pet survivability in dungeons and WvW really does need to be looked at, pets need to be more threatening in PvP. But that seems like the general idea.

The key flaw with your argument is that you have forgotton that opportunity cost is built-in to the ranger. You take a hit to damage just for being a ranger. Other classes can choose their opportunity cost.

The link between iniative and ranger pet is also too far flung, too loose. Try comparing mesmer mechanic with ranger, they are much closer. And here, you can see that a mesmer sacrificies no damage to have a pet that is significantly stronger than a ranger pet in pvp and can also use pets to apply some of the most useful debilitating abilities for pvp. And they can have 2 hard hitting pets out at once.

When talking pet class, mesmer is the king (in pvp). And yet here on the ranger forums we have to defend the inadequacy of the ranger with far flung talk of “opportunity cost” that doesn’t seem to apply to other classes in the same way.

If only the warrior’s rifle was a bow it would be the perfect ranger.

kismet.5347:

Today has been a really hard day for me. Im dying constantly in spvp with my trusty build.. Im getting tired of burst mechanics in this game. And lack of reliable burst with ele. Got 6,5k steal from a thief with 2k toughness, unkillable mesmers who just phase out when things go awry and many more frustrating things.. I have almost 1k games played with my ele and rank 6 mesmers and thieves cause me gray hair……… how ridiculous is that
Honestly whats the point in playing anything else than a thief or a mesmer?

Yea yea when played good ele really shines etc. The problem is when played good esp. mesmer REALLY shines.

sry about ranting.. just so frustrated…

Yes they seem to be counters to almost everything.

I play a lot of spvp and while I agree that the ele is a challanging class to learn, I can’t agree that it is weak or UP in pvp. A well played ele with a decent build is one of the fights I hate the most. Their very powerful aoe, knockdowns, speed/mobility, with some builds being extremely tanky are a nightmare to go up against.

I say keep on practising, maybe link up with someone really good like Evie appears to be.

Ranger is reasonable sustained damage if built and played well, but it is relatively weak as a burst class. That’s a big reason why it is weak in pvp but ok in pve.

So if a friend asked, I want to do huge crits, be able to nearly oneshot people, be really mobile, have great survivability, and a forgiving playstyle you should steer them away from Ranger.

I would love to see some other game modes, I guess the things Jon mentioned are more desired by the people looking at the “esport” aspect of the game. However, from an enjoyment aspect having at least two other game modes would be huge.

Barrage is ok in wvw, but doesn’t do much damage. Elementalists’ aoe is much more powerful. I guess its good for restricting movement on the field.

I’ve tried something very similar to this, its pretty tanky. Have you tried using 2 water/ 2 monk/ 2 grove runes? That gives you the healing bonus and +35% uptime on protection as well as +20% on other boons.

My impression of the build was that it wasn’t as strong as a condition/trap build or a power/tanky build, the pets just aren’t as reliable as my bow….

Doesn’t WvW stand for Player vs Door?

I can pawn people in spvp on Ranger and on other classes, but it doesn’t mean Rangers are good in pvp. Other classes to the job better, that’s why the general consensus on the spvp forum is that Ranger sucks. That is also a reason why people complain on the ranger forums, although the recent crying storm was triggered by the shortbow nerf.

Sol.4310:

Rangers own in PvP guys, don’t listen to everyone saying they under powered cause I can’t be only person facerolling every single class I come up against.

Ranger is ranked as the worst or equal worst profession for spvp in any “rank the profession” type threads on the spvp forums.

NaturalPortman.9562:

Especially people who claim that rangers do poorly in SPVP. Ranger is slightly under-powered in terms of the meta in tournament style PVP but I wouldn’t say by much.

No one seems to understand how fast a ranger can put pressure on a player with conditions while still having decent survivability. Not to mention that there is a build that basically leaves you unkillable, or atleast until your team members can come kill off the attackers for you.

A build that leaves you basically unkillable? So you are saying rangers are gods now?

People who claim rangers are UP in spvp are exaggerating? In every post I have read in the spvp forum rating the classes in spvp rangers are ranked at the bottom by almost everyone here is a recent one, please read and educate yourself, or maybe go play some spvp with a ranger:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Rank-dem-Professions-V2/page/2#post734766

Rangers are seriously UP in the spvp meta, but feel free to white knight away- its easy to be pro on the forums.

docMed.7692:

Yasha.5963:

Haha, OP it is you who are clearly exaggerating. Check out this thread from the spvp forums where ranger is ranked worst or equal worst of all professions for spvp in nearly every post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Rank-dem-Professions-V2/page/2#post734766

In fact it is only on the ranger forums that you can find people who actually think they are any good.

Crazy to think the people who play the class may know a thing or two about them and/or be the most knowledgable. Nonetheless, they are talking about Rangers in usefulness/utility for spvp, which they are fairly low in my opinion. Nonetheless, in 1v1 scenarios they excel very well.

Yes they are talking about how good ranger is for spvp-OP claims they are gods that can’t be killed. Ranger can do well in 1vs1, especially against noobs, if specced correctly-doesn’t make them the best option to bring to a fight.

Haha, OP it is you who are clearly exaggerating. Check out this thread from the spvp forums where ranger is ranked worst or equal worst of all professions for spvp in nearly every post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Rank-dem-Professions-V2/page/2#post734766

In fact it is only on the ranger forums that you can find people who actually think they are any good.

I have a question for you beast master fans. If i use nerva’s chain stun combo with my pet on the enemy can i crit (combined ranger and pet damage) for more than a thief mug-CnD/backstab combo, or a warrior frenzy HB?

How do you test for the internal CDs? I would like to do this as well, could you give me a methodology please?

Quickness seems fine to me, except possibly in builds where adding quickness gives an insta kill to all but the tankiest of opponents.

On a ranger quickness is the only trait that stands out as good on a class that is almost universally seen as weak or even useless in the spvp meta.

You would have to do some drastic rebalancing of all classes if you just decided to nerf or take out quickness. For example those classes that the OP says do not have quickness will have to be nerfed, or maybe warrior’s HB should apply a stun or immobilize as well to make up for it.

However, I think quickness could be just taken off thieves without breaking anything.

To Sleepy and the others that persistently call people who believe the ranger is sub-par at pvp and needs to be buffed “just whiners”, or refer us to the other class forums and say how they are also full of the same type of threads of people saying how UP their class is, please read this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Rank-dem-Professions-V2/page/2#post734766

Nearly everyone posts ranger as worst or equal worst for spvp. For people that are serious about pvp, you cannot imagine how pissed off we were when our one competitive weapon got nerfed in a patch that was meant to nerf other classes, grrrr, you guys just don’t get it.

Please try to understand that we love ranger and see the potential there, we can still do good 1vs1 or beat noobs or whatever, but if you spend most of your time in spvp you know that Ranger is clearly UP in spvp, and is often a liability to the team.

Here’s hoping that in the next few hours rangers get a significant buff that gives them some purpose in the spvp and wvw meta.

Silent.4378:

Entangle is such a great skill for thief’s that are fleeing , they pop there heal/invis but get stuck from your immobilize and cant do anything while u pop traps at their location .

Unfortunately any thief that is not a complete noob will use one of the many thief skills that can get them out of entangle. It is actually very weak against thieves (good against many other classes though).

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Ninjah.6298:

Something no-one has pointed out is LB crits harder, ergo, harder hitting in less time, ie. higher burst.

Also, thieves sb has a draw time, unlike ranger.

Thieves shortbow also teleports them, bounces from target to target multiple times, oh and blows up for 5-6k aoe. So yea, lets not go there about how rangers have it better than thieves shortbow. I cant count the times Ive used shortbow on thief to dps and when someone sees me and attacks I infiltrator arrow away out of reach several times to escape.

Agreed. Basically I play my thief how I imagined a ranger would play- using the bow as the main weapon, kiting a lot, always moving, very mobile, and pumping out huge burst when left alone. Its not the optimal thief set up, but it is the closest I can get to what I thought the archer/scout-archetype would be.

Nice write up, sounds like spvp is exactly the same as tpvp-or at least what you would hope people did in spvp.

I have played about 700 spvp games but have never played tpvp because due to my life/work situation I can’t work with organized teams, I can only join as a single. There is no point in joining tpvp as a single if you are matched against organized teams.

On the hotjoin spvp front, I keep hearing that making it 5v5 will somehow magically fix the zerg mentality in this format. I disagree. I have played in spvp where there are fewer people but the zerg mentality continues. Its not due to numbers but a lack of comunication. If anything 8v8 increases the stratigic possibilities in hotjoin.

I think devs have got it right with the 8v8 (its fun) but we need more game formats, not just conquest. Obviously tpvp would be more attractive to single join players if queues were separated, but I am fine with one spvp being for non-guild/group players or the very brave and spvp being for people with no friends (like me). However, if the tpvp queue was split into single/group I would of course also play tpvp.

AlexRD.7914:

Guys, seriously, its not all about damage.

For instance, shortbow’s skill 5 is used to interrupt heals, or hundred blades, skill 3 saves you from a world of pain, skill 4 prevents the person from reaching you, skill two prevents someone from recovering their health effectively.

They are utility skills. They’re not supposed to do damage, they help your survive. People keep saying warrior’s rifle does more damage than the shortbow. Of course! But they don’t survive as much. They may wear heavy armor, but they cant escape while using a rifle. The amount of escapes a ranger has is ridiculous and is only surpassed by the thief. So sure, the warrior will do more damage but i’ll still outlive him.

Longbow skills 1,2,3 need a little boost in damage though i’ll give you that.

No one was comparing warrior rifle to ranger bows in this thread, they just said ranger bows are lackluster.

However, if you are just comparing the escape/cc abilities of the rifle and ranger bows you have:

Rifle: knock back and cripple (can be traited to immobilize and is on very short CD)
SB: cripple and jump back(evade) and short stun/daze
Longbow: aoe cripple and knock back
Bonus comparision thief SB: spammable cripple and jumpback and spamable teleport that can be used while immobilized

So you see utility wise the weapons are very similar, its just that rifle (and thief bow) also does more damage and has killshot as an extra burst skill.

In WvW at lvl 65 you are probably toast; but in spvp mainhand axe is quite good against mesmers. The bouncing kills the clones and also will hit them when they go invisible (unless they teleport out of range). You can also “mark” the mesmer when you first see them (there is a key bind for it, puts a big circle over the real mesmer). That will stay until it stealths.

There is not much you can do though in 1vs1 if they have moa or whatever the ultimate is called off cd- you can’t even LOS them because the phantasms will always get you.

On your question about a trap build: cc traps really work well with a mobile ranger playstyle. They basically compliment any build; you can go full condition spec and use traps as cc and high damage, or as very useful cc in a power or support spec. I like to take spike and cold nearly all the time now; very useful against thieves.

Also I never take the three utlities you mention- QZ you can get from 5 points in beastmaster; speed signet is too slow (use horn); regen signet doesn’t give much compared to many other utilities.

I don’t really play pve though, so maybe your set up works well there.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

@Yasha.5963

I run with a full glass cannon build in spvp. My shortbow crossfire on other glass cannons did 1k-1400, my rapid fire does the same, right now yes rapid fire does more in 2.5 secs because crossfire is bugged with QZ, but before the bug crossfire did the same damage except continued for the full 4 seconds.

For those saying kill shot is bad for pvp, its not, you dont just come right out and use it, and when used with frenzy it comes so fast its hard to predict. Sure it can be dodged but when they do, they lose a dodge bar which lets you switch and eviscerate or something.

Thanks Dante, I guess I can never bring myself to build a fully glass canon, my shortbow only does about 700damage to the light armor golem when I spec for my “glass” build.

On the kill shot front, I noticed that not only is it good for pvp, rifle is still good even without it!

I just tried out a ranged warrior in spvp, inspired by this post. I didn’t really give the build much thought, just a glass-canon type with all the gun skills/piercing etc.

It was easy to kill and get high scores. I seemed really tough despite the huge damage I was pumping out.

The things that really stood out for me compared to ranger: near-full uptime on swiftness. This is huge for any ranged class! About 70% fury and might uptime. Bleeds from any angle. High damage from all skills. Two huge burst skills. A second weapon set that wasn’t useless. Great control through a low CD cripple and a 5point trait that turns cripple into immobilize. Being able to take endure pain without traiting for it-I could even get it twice if I wanted to (through traits)! High defense and high health for a glass cannon. Easy set up for laying down high burst-and Kill shot is 1500 range woot!

Things I missed: Lacked dodges, lacked random KD from dog pets, lacked traps-oh and I hate using guns, bow just looks so much cooler. I also like the quick fire rate of shortbow.

Obviously I am better at ranger because I’ve played it so much, but I didn’t feel that much weaker than my ranger overall even though I have played over 600 games on my ranger and only a few on the warrior.

I’ll probably keep pawning noobs in spvp, getting owned by anyone half decent and complain on the forums as usual.

But I’m not expecting any radical changes, so even a few improvements will be welcome-if they really are improvements. I’m still a bit worried about further possible “animation fixes”……

Namu.5712:

No one cares what Anet considers a ranger to be lore wise. People rolled a ranger because its traditionally a bowmen type class that has a companion. But both bows and pets are so flawed right now in comparison to other ranged weapons for other class’s its not even funny.

I just want to point out that ANET actually does consider ranger to be unparalleled at using the bow, contrary to what some forum posters may claim. Here is the Ranger description from the GW2 website (with picture of ranger with BOW in hand):

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

@Aethersong.5189

Yep that is tested and proven. I run a glass cannon build and my rapid fire on squishies does maybe 1350 each hit, sometimes the occasional 1400. Shortbow crossfire spam as power crit does the same damage, and doesnt have a cd. Think of a rapid fire that lasts for 4 secs during QZ. It pretty much does almost twice the damage as rapid fire at about hte same speed when they fix the QZ bug.

Dante, I agree with what you say about rapid fire being pretty weak compared even to SB auto-attack. However, I just wondered if those numbers were from WvW or Spvp becasue my SB auto attack doesn’t do near that much damage. (If you are getting that much damage in spvp, could you share the build pls?)

Loki.4871:

Absolem.2941:

Should Warriors really be better at using Bows than a ranger?

Yes. The warrior is supposed to be the best with weapons. The ranger is a ‘jack of all trades’ in Anet’s own words, so like for like the ranger should be inferior in a straight up slogging match. Ranger =/= ‘ranged combat’ it gets the name from it wandering (or ‘ranging’) the wilderness.
Besides, the ranger gets pets, which compensates.

The ranger class description on the GW2 website, (with a picture of a ranger with BOW in hand):

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

See on the ranger forums we have to make all these weird excuses for why warrior and thief do bows better than us.

BTW Loki in case you are not a native English speaker “Unparalleled” means “the best at”. So “in ANET’s own words” Rangers are the best archers in this game.

The main issue I see with your post OP is that you compare warrior with mesmer and thief and say warriors are UP in relation to them, or because you need a certain build to counter them (note this is the same for all other classes!). Those are the two most OP classes in the game, so if they are the main problem then warrior is in third spot after the 2 outliers. Sounds like warrior is in a good spot.

Also on kiting-warrior is one of the most mobile classes in the game, especially with greatsword.

Sleepy.2647:

The difference is some classes do 10k and then hit for 1k, and ranger does 2k all the time…see? DPS is the same, burst is not.

Well that would be nice if true, but the 2K is some magic number that I never see on my ranger in spvp (maybe a lucky crit on swoop with 20 stacks of vunrability on target?) and there are several classes that can pump out 6-10K bursts on short CDs.

So its more like the Ranger uses its auto attack to pump out that constant damage (oh but wait-auto attack on other classes hits harder), while some other classes can auto attack (for more) AND burst for 6-10K+.

You see? That’s just how sad the ranger class is.

The fast downing is due to quickness. Rangers have a trait that lets them get quickness on pet swap, its often used to finish quickly, but its only 2secs so maybe you didn’t notice the buff?

I’ve never seen my pets hit for that much in spvp though, even specced for damage, I’m envious.

Sleepy.2647:

Yasha.5963:

Let me rephrase that for you “Rangers will never have skills that do more than 2000 damage instantly, just face it already people”

And that’s perfectly fine, not every class hits for 10k as far as i know. PvP should take skill, and not simply smash your keyboard with your feet to kill your target. If any class can kill in a second or two then that’s a flaw of that class, the rest shouldn’t be buffed to match that.

10K and under 2K are a loooong way apart. That is one reason why people complain about ranger. But I agree, doing such high damage in a few seconds is not great for the fun factor when you are on the recieving end.

Turning it around in that light the lack of burst can be sweet, because you get to enjoy longer fights.

Sleepy.2647:

Yasha.5963:

And what is wrong with that? The point is that the ranger’s hardest hitting “burst” skill is SB auto-attack, thats how sad the class is.

Ranger will never have skills that do 8-15k instantly, just face it already…people .

Let me rephrase that for you “Rangers will never have skills that do more than 2000 damage instantly, just face it already people”

Brienson.7319:

Sdric.8526:

Rangers are good in pre-80-PvE, some ‘ld even call them op.
Sadly they’re also completely worthless in WvW, sPvP and Dungeons.
People with say “No they’re not, you can play them successfully!”
Well thats true – but every class can stomp rookies, especially lvl 1 guys in WvW.
The main problem of the Ranger is:
The numbers on 9 out of 10 skills are simply broken.
(Due to Ranger being op in CB and getting overnerfed on nearly each single skill)
Also countless bugs and bad trait-in-traitline positioning (trap@precision).

An image says more than 1000 words.
Note: The Ranger has a full critical set, the Thief has only 1 rune, but the rest of his equip is exactly equal.

you just compared thief’s unload to the ranger’s shortbow autoattack as your argument for how the ranger is weak. good job.

And what is wrong with that? The point is that the ranger’s hardest hitting “burst” skill is SB auto-attack, thats how sad the class is.

Yes thief shortbow does more damage. You can burst with thief SB (cluster bomb spam +poison+auto attack), and the auto attack hits harder than ranger’s auto attack.

You can take out whole groups on a point with thief SB and stealth teleport to safety if they try to focus you.

There is a serious flaw in your title OP. It should read, “Ranger and their LACK of burst”.

I just came back from a sabatical on a guardian and it really hit that home to me. The best burst you have as a ranger is SB auto-attack! How lame is that?

OMG GS is soooo bad compared to guardian GS. I read a post recently extolling the virtues of ranger GS, so I was all revved up to give it another go, but it hits like a wet noodle! It has no burst skills, the ulility skills are sub-par, terrible!

Ranger can do condition burst of course; the best I can think of is have three traps on a point, enemy steps on them, lay three more traps, warhorn 5, 4 axe chill, axe bleed, swap to SB- SB 5, swap pets (with qickening trait) and auto attack while straffing for bleeds. Throw in entangle for good measure.

Unfortunately if specced for condition damage SB auto-attack is a pea shooter doing 2-300 damage, haha- but the conditions do add up (until condition removal).

Because the Ranger’s greatest burst skill is short-bow auto attack? (which was nerfed, haha)

Yes sorry if I seemed harsh before, nldixon’s condition build would do the job but the one I gave is just easier because it has more inbuilt defense. He/she is probably quite good so can probably work around having less defense.

I rarely seem to get stunned in pvp, except by thieves and the build I gave you can absorb their opener, swap weapons to freeze them, lay traps, and try to kite away. Once they realize they can’t instagib you they’ll target you less. Most people see ranger and think “yes easy kill!”.

I find the problematic cc in spvp are knockdowns and immobilize. The signet of renewal will break both stun and immobilize so its a sound choice if that is an issue during a match. I don’t have a solution to KD in that build-stay clear of engi and some eles I guess.

I don’t recommend nldixon.8514’s condition based build as a starting point for spvp (the other 2 builds are out even without looking because you definately don’t want to go longbow or beastmaster).

For the problems you describe OP I suggest skirmishing 30 with traits IV, X, and XI; wilderness survival 30 with II, IX, and XII, and beastmastery 5, with the last 5 in either marks or nature magic (last 5 in this case doesn’t really matter).

Use a shortbow plus warhorn and axe. Put glyph of hydromancy on the horn. Put either a bleed on crit chance on the axe and bow, or a remove condition glyph. You might also want to put a glyph of hydromancy on the shortbow-I carry a spare bow with that glyph so I can swap if needed.

For armor use the supior rune of the undead. Use the rabid amulet and jewel.

Utilities take frost, spike, fire traps. Swap fire trap for signet of renewal if there are lots of necros etc. Use troll ugnuent. Elite-entangle.

Use two dog type pets.

Your role is to be this tough kitten that does insane condition damage. Here is a basic “rotation”. On the offense, use troll uguent, open with the horn buff then bird attack, then the axe chill, either kite or close distance depending on what you are facing. You want to drop all your traps on whoever it is; use other axe attacks and swap to bow.

In this and every scenario you need to be aware of your pet. He will do nice things like KD for you especially with the enemy slowed/snared/frozen a lot. Swap pets on CD and use short bow auto attack for the quickness burst. Swap pets when downing reviving someone for the quicknes quick finishers.

I guarantee that you will do fine with this build and see the up side of ranger. Once you get your head around it try out GS or longsword+horn, plus start moving traits around to experiment.

The set up I gave has high defense, protects u periodically from cc, helps you finish downed players quickly and has high condition based damage. The weapon set up is forgiving because it is all ranged and all the weapons have ranged slows/dazes. Axe is also good against mesmer and stealth thieves because of the bounce attack.

Kirby.4951:

So based on your judgement of ranger pets what specifically makes them so much worse then mesmer clones?

Rangers have more control over their pets then mesmers, so it may be harder for someone to properly control a ranger pet where a mesmer just makes clones and lets them do their own thing.

Thighum.7295 covered some reasons above, and also I think my example of how simple it is to create massive burst with mesmer pets shows another angle.

So to reiterate, mesmer pets can 1) attack anywhere/chase anywhere 2) reliably hit their target and do high damage 3) can be used for massive burst because they attack (and generally hit) as soon as summoned, 4) two high damage hard hitting phantasms (that reliably hit) can be out at the same time, 5) they relock onto target after stealth, 6) they do all the above without the mesmer needing to micro manage them, 7) they can apply reliable and effective cc easily through the shatter mechanism (note also that clones/illusions can apply this shatter cc damage as well).

A ranger pet will be a better tank in pve of course, but in pvp the pet of choice is the phantasm. The mechanic just suits pvp so much better. Its not that ranger pets are totally useless, in spvp at least they can be a big help with random knockdowns, fearing off downstate etc (if the pet actually responds to the F2 command!). Compared to a mesmer pet though they are lamearse.

And for all the advantages the mesmer pet has, it requires little to no micromanagement (apart from shatter); Ranger pets have to be micromanaged and “helped” by ccing targets so they can hit to be effective and are still far worse than mesmer pets; that is the core issue I think (for pvp).